The Commentariat -- July 7, 2013

David Kirkpatrick & Mayy El Sheikh of the New York Times: "The abrupt end of Egypt's first Islamist government was the culmination of months of escalating tensions and ultimately futile American efforts to broker a solution that would keep Mr. Morsi in his elected office, at least in name, if not in power."

** Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times: "In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation's surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say.... The court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny.... The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, was once mostly focused on approving case-by-case wiretapping orders. But since major changes in legislation and greater judicial oversight of intelligence operations were instituted six years ago, it has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court, serving as the ultimate arbiter on surveillance issues and delivering opinions that will most likely shape intelligence practices for years to come.... Unlike the Supreme Court, the FISA court hears from only one side in the case -- the government -- and its findings are almost never made public." ...

... CW: guess who chooses the judges who sit on the FISA court? Without anybody else having any say-so whatsofuckingever? Chief Justice John Roberts, that's who. And before him, of course, Chief Justice William Rehnquist. I'll bet those two fellows just loaded the FISA court with flaming civil libertarians. As Michael McGough writes in the Los Angeles Times, "Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation of judges for the FISA court would allow senators to question nominees about their view of the 4th Amendment and constitutional privacy rights." ...

I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if I had a personal email. -- Ed Snowden, to the Guardian, June 2013

... CW: if Snowden really could wiretap & read the personal e-mail of "a federal judge," then it would have been a damned good idea if he had proved it by revealing some of the personal love notes or other embarrassing hoohah written by a few FISA court judges. What better way to cause them to rethink their cavalier rulings? ...

... Jeff Rosen of the National Constitution Center, in a Washington Post op-ed: "Repeatedly, our government has chosen technologies, policies and laws that reveal innocent information without making us demonstrably safer. The massive telephone and Internet surveillance programs disclosed last month are the most recent examples. But the tendency goes back at least as far as the USA Patriot Act, passed in the anxious weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, with only one dissenting vote in the Senate [Russ Feingold].... A better Patriot Act might have avoided national scandals over not only airport scanners and phone metadata but also wiretapping and library records. A better law could have dispensed with the 'trust us' mentality and mitigated the erosion of trust in government. It could have put us in a better position to detect terrorism and other serious crimes without threatening privacy." Rosen, a lawyer, goes on to suggest some improvements in the law. ...

David Mindich, in a New York Times op-ed -- citing President Lincoln & his Secretary of War Edwin Stanton's establishment of a draconian surveillance state -- argues that the problem isn't the surveillance as much as it is the duration of the amorphous war on terror....

... CW: Mindich has a point. Perhaps it's not coincidental that Snowden's leaks came precisely at the time President Obama announced it was time to wind down the war on terror. Would the Post & the Guardian have been willing to publish the same type of information in November 2001? Nonetheless, Mindich is not considering two important factors: (1) inertia, and (2) special interests, both of which encourage, at the very least, continuance of the surveillance state. The federal government has never been good at cutting back military-related programs (do you think Sen. Orrin Hatch [R-Utah] wants to shut down the NSA facility in Utah?), & private contractors' interest in maintaining & extending their multi-billion-dollar contracts (easily effected by greasing Congress) only exacerbates administration officials' desires to enhance their fiefdoms. ...

... Deadline. Daniel Arkin & Brinley Bruton of NBC News: "Venezuelan officials say they have not heard from Edward Snowden since the country offered the professed NSA leaker asylum, but would wait until Monday to hear if he would take up the offer." ...

... Add Bolivia to the list of countries that have offered asylum to Ed Snowden. So that's three: Nicaraqua, Venezuela & Bolivia. Hope the duty-free shop at the Sheremetyevo Airport sells Spanish-language Berlitz tapes. ...

... Catch 22? Nataliya Vasilyeva of the AP: "Because Snowden's U.S. passport has been revoked, the logistics of him departing are complicated. Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia have made asylum offers over the past two days, but the three countries haven't indicated they would help Snowden by issuing a travel document, which he would need to leave Russia."

Frank Bruni: "Protecting assets and massaging facts, Cardinal Dolan and other Catholic leaders have responded to the abuse crisis the way the cunning chieftains of a corporation might.... Over the last few decades we've watched an organization that claims a special moral authority in the world pursue many of the same legal and public-relations strategies -- shuttling around money, looking for loopholes, tarring accusers, massaging the truth -- that are employed by organizations devoted to nothing more than the bottom line."

The American Jihad. Historian James Byrd, in the Washington Post: "When colonists declared their independence on July 4, 1776, religious conviction inspired them. Because they believed that their cause had divine support, many patriots' ardor was both political and religious. They saw the conflict as a just, secular war, but they fought it with religious resolve, believing that God endorsed the cause.... Whatever century it is, our leaders often include some suggestion of the same biblical themes that filled revolutionary-era sermons, including sacrifice, courage for the fight and appeals for God's providential blessings on America."

Mackenzie Weinger of Politico profiles liberal talk-radio host Thom Hartmann.

Brian McFadden of the New York Times goes to journalism summer camp.

Congressional Race

It's All About Liz. Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: Liz Cheney "has made it clear that she wants to run for the Senate seat now held by Michael B. Enzi, a soft-spoken Republican [Wy.] and onetime fly-fishing partner of her father. But Ms. Cheney's move threatens to start a civil war within the state's Republican establishment, despite the reverence many hold for her family. Mr. Enzi, 69, says he is not ready to retire, and many Republicans say he has done nothing to deserve being turned out."

News Ledes

AP: "Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, is in critical but stable condition in a hospital in Nantucket, Mass." It's worth noting that a few days ago, wingers were berating John Kerry for "vacationing" during the Egyptian crisis. ...

     ... Boston Globe Update: "Teresa Heinz Kerry, leading philanthropist and wife of US Secretary of State John F. Kerry, was at Massachusetts General Hospital tonight after being rushed this afternoon to Nantucket Cottage Hospital, where a hospital spokesman had said she was in critical but stable condition."

Al Jazeera: "The continuing chaos in Egypt in the aftermath of last Wednesday's military coup has been compounded further after the choice of liberal politician Mohamed ElBaradei as interim prime minister was thrown into doubt by objections from conservative groups." Al Jazeera's profile of ElBaradei is here. ...

     ... Update: "A polarised Egypt entered a second week of political crisis, as opponents and supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi held rival demonstrations in Cairo and cities across the country. The rallies on Sunday came as a coalition that backed Morsi's removal wavered over the choice of Mohamed ElBaradei as interim prime minister."

Al Jazeera: "Turkish riot police have fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse about 3,000 demonstrators who tried to enter a park adjacent to Istanbul's Taksim Square, the heart of recent protests against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan."

AP: "Fires continued burning more than 24 hours after a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed in eastern Quebec, igniting explosions and fires that destroyed a town's center and killed at least one person. Police said they expected the death toll to increase."

NBC News: "Investigators recovered both black boxes from Asiana Airlines Flight 214 on Sunday, NTSB officials told NBC News, as the airline's president said that engine failure was likely not the cause of the crash that killed two and injured scores more on the runway at San Francisco International Airport." ...

     ... San Francisco Chronicle Update: "The doomed Asiana Airlines jetliner came perilously close to stalling before the pilot made a last-second attempt to abort landing and crashed into a seawall bordering a San Francisco International Airport runway, injuring dozens on board and killing two teenagers, transportation safety investigators said Sunday. Preliminary analysis of flight data and cockpit recordings shows that the plane's speed was 'below target,' said U.S. Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman at a media briefing on Sunday afternoon." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "On Monday, Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyomin said that Lee Gang-guk, the pilot in control of the Boeing 777, had little experience flying that kind of plane. She told the Associated Press that it was the pilot's first time landing in San Francisco and that he had nearly 10,000 hours flying other planes but only 43 hours on the 777."

Comments

[mae finch]

http://margaretandhelen.com/
Helen's on a humorous tear-
Her title is " If my vagina shot bullets, coud I conceal it from rick Perry and John Kasich?".

(the one below it is good too.)
mae finch

[Barbarossa]

[The Patriot Act] delenda est. My opinion, of course.

A wise sergeant once said: "Once a job is fucked up, any attemt to fix it only makes it worse." AIn't no way we can fix the Patriot Act. Tear it down and start over. First question after it's gone, "Do we need a replacement?" If so, Rosen has some good ideas. Replacement, not Revision.

That secret FISA court gives me the creeps. Roberts chooses the judges? Somehow, Torquemada comes to mind. Tear a leaf from Torquemada's book--he had multiple Inquisition--why not have multiple FISA courts?

[cowichan's opinion]

A Republican appointed chief justice appointing a FISA court consisting of 100% Republican appointees cannot be a good thing. Unless of course you believe judges render judgements divorced from personal history and bias.